Posts Tagged ‘Sailing’

Final day on the seas… Taking a quick trip across the shipping lane took us back to Kalamaki marina. After cleaning up, fuelling and packing, we were off in to Athens for some final drinks before catching our flights back home. Our waitress providing one of the most viewed online images of this trip!
Daily statistics:
•Wind force: 3
•Calm sea
•Total nautical miles: 13 NM

After a heavy night of partying, the crew was not feeling great today, and that’s an understatement! The winds picked up to a strong Northerly force 5 as well. So rather than trying to reef and tack through that with a crew ready to puke out last nights fun, we decided to motor up North.
The plan was to head up all the way back to Kalamaki, but at reaching N.Aigina we decided to anchor up in the leeway of the island, getting a well deserved rest from the swells.
At this point we also learnt our speedometer had been off by quite a lot during the week. According to the calculations we were about 10% faster than the instrument told us! We would do the last stretch to Kalamaki on Saturday morning instead, allowing a nice night in the bay rather than the polluted Athens.
Daily statistics:

Rob, our final crew member, joined us in the morning, and what a day to join! Thursday was by far and away the best sailing day! Strong winds of force 4 allowed us to get the most out of Apollon. With the crew taking turns at “skippering”, we finally got a good feel of what it’s like to tack through some proper winds.
Even though Duncan did shat himself and needed hand-holding when the boat started heeling over a bit, the wuss!
After about 10 NM of sailing around Hydra’s bay, we went back to Hydra early to secure a spot for the night… the actual Stag NIGHT!!! (for obvious reasons we will not show any pictures of the night here)
Daily statistics:

Johan joined us early in the morning having arrived by Ferry from Athens. Unfortunately there was not a lot of wind today, so after bobbing around for a while, we had to entertain ourselves in a different way.
Who said 5 knots under power is slow? Let’s see who can hold on the longest shall we?!
After our attempts at water skiing, we headed for Hydra in the afternoon, only to arrive at a chockablock full harbour. We ended up anchoring in the bay of Mandraki just East of Hydra.
Daily statistics:

After a quick morning excursion to the town of Poros, we headed out south through the tight channel. Lucky our depth meter was working, as we had to dive out of the way of ferry steaming it’s way in to Poros with no concern for anyone else!
Some serious cool tacking in between the islands N.Skilli and N.Spathi allowed us to round the corner and head up to the “Crouching Frog” (N.Soupia) for lunch and a bit of a swim.
The afternoon turned in to a calm and very pretty sailing trip, highlighted by dolphins around the boat! We anchored up in the bay of Órmos Skindos on the island of N.Dhokós, where after some very hilarious attempts, Rich and Per managed to pull a long mooring line back up to the shore… (Rich: perhaps you should look up Snell’s Law?)

Sunday morning we headed out on our excursion. Heading out of the harbour caused some fine moments of engineering (why does that bow thruster have its own bleeding on/off switch??).
Having past the shipping lane, and out in clear skies (boy Athens is polluted!) we hoisted the sails and the crew got their first taste of tacking as we had direct head wind.
Half way through the day we dropped the sails and ate some lunch on board as we motored the rest of the way to Poros, where we found a nice spot on a mooring buoy to settle for the night.
Crack open the beers and whisky!
Daily statistics:

Whatever happened to the good ‘ole days when the groom would go out for his last night on the town with his mates the night before his big day?!
When Ian decided he would tie the knot, he also planned three (!) stag do’s. One for work, one in London, and one… wait for it… a week sailing in Greece!
Well who am I to complain? Especially since I got to be the skipper on our yacht, an Ocean Star 51.2 called Apollon.
Saturday the crew arrived at the Kalamaki marina to be shown to our yacht. We spent the day provisioning her and going over some safety instructions. Most important rules on board:

Skipper is always right (and does not ever cook)

No alcohol between anchor up and anchor down

What to do during man overboard (SPOT THAT MAN!)

Know your eight knots (pop quiz: who still knows them all??)

Random thoughts

OK, possibly a bit late but I've jumped on the blog bandwagon also. Don't say I didn't warn you: these postings will be disjointed, incoherent, weird, geeky and boring